Jamie Nye: Corey Mace ticks all the boxes in Riderville

Column

The Saskatchewan Roughriders are asking Corey Mace to do what he’s consistently done throughout his career: Take on a challenge and excel.

Mace entered the coaching ranks as the defensive line coach of the Calgary Stampeders and while he was gifted future Hall of Famer and former teammate Charleston Hughes, it’s what came after that was most impressive.

Mace continued to coach up players like Mike Rose, Cordarro Law, Ja’Gared Davis, Folarin Orimolade, Shawn Lemon, Derek Wiggan and Micah Johnson to have great seasons.

When the Toronto Argonauts came calling in 2022, Mace answered to become defensive co-ordinator and help lead a defence that impressed on its way to a Grey Cup championship. He followed that up with the ability to improve the defence even further to help Toronto achieve a 16-2 record in 2023.

Now, Mace is taking the next step up the ladder to head coach with a difficult task: Turning around a franchise in the fishbowl that is Saskatchewan.

There isn’t a franchise that has more eyes on it and more opinions from the outside than the Roughriders.

Mace is embracing those expectations full bore by committing to becoming a member of the Saskatchewan community while also attempting to build a winner on the field.

And Mace is getting the job for ticking a lot of the boxes put forward by the Riders organization.

First and foremost, the Roughriders needed a coach to set a new culture. Locker room culture and team camaraderie appeared to become more and more of an issue within Mosaic Stadium.

When you look at Mace’s career, you see that people are drawn to him. He has kept relationships wherever he has gone and developed friendships that are now beyond just football.

He is a man who will build a family in the locker room and the tighter the team, the harder they fight for each other.

Second, the Roughriders needed to bring in a winner. Mace won as a player, a positional coach and a co-ordinator. The only thing left for him to do is win as a head coach.

Third, they needed a personality that commands attention. As noted earlier, Mace has always been someone that people are drawn to. I don’t mean Mace needs to be the most charismatic person in the room, but he needs to command respect and return it to his players.

Fourth, the coach needs to coach. I know you may think that should be higher up on the priority list, but when you’re the head coach, you are more so the leader of men.

He needs to hire the right people to cover up for the attention Mace needs to pay throughout the team rather than to any one position group or one of the three sides of the ball. When you saw Mace and the Argonauts go up against any opponent, it was apparent he had his group prepared and ready to play.

Finally, the Riders need a man committed to Saskatchewan. Word is that Mace is fully ready to embrace the bigger role that the head coach can play in Saskatchewan. And Mace has shown he is more than willing to make a community a better place.

As has been reported, Mace ran a turkey drive for families at Thanksgiving and was given the Presidents’ Ring in Calgary for his performance on and off the field when he was a player.

In terms of a ‘give you the shirt of his back’ guy, Mace is just that. He is a person who has lived and coached who is more concerned with the whole rather than the individual.

The more I’ve read and been told about Mace, the more impressed I am about the Roughriders’ hire.

While many have already written or said the Roughriders have hit a home run, it appears they’ve hit for the cycle with the number of needs Corey Mace fills for the head-coaching role.

But now the real work begins. He needs to fill his staff and the team needs to mould the roster before we even start to get to see how Mace really handles being the boss — though Mace has yet to find a job he hasn’t been able to handle.

(This column was originally posted to cfl.ca)